'm playing this
game with you very fairly, you see--which sounds conceited and as if
the game meant anything to you, a stranger. But because you are good,
and saving souls is your job, and because you think my soul might get
wrecked, for those reasons it does mean a little I think.

About your letter. Some of it is wonderful. I never thought about it
that way. In a conventional, indifferent fashion I've believed that if
I'm good I'll go to a place called heaven when I die. It hasn't
interested me very much--what I've heard has sounded rather dull--the
people supposed to be on the express trains there have, many of them,
been people I didn't want to play with. I've cared to be straight and
broad-minded and all that because I naturally object to sneaks and
catty people--not for much other reason. But this is a wonderful idea
of yours, that my only life--as I've regarded it--is just about five
minutes anyhow, of a day that goes on from strength to strength.
You've somehow put an atmosphere into it, and a reality. I believe you
believe it. Excuse me--I'm not being flippant; I'm only being deadly
real. I may shoot myself tonight; tomorrow morning I may be dead,
whatever that means. Anyhow, I haven't a desire to talk etiquettically
about things like this. And I won't, whatever you may think of me.
Your letter didn't convince me. It inspired me; it made me feel that
maybe--just maybe--it might be worth while to wiggle painfully, or more
painfully lie still in your "box" and that I'd come out--all of us poor
things would come out--into gloriousness some time. I would hate to
have queered myself, you know, by going off at half-cock. But would it
queer me? What do you know about it? How can you tell? I might be
put back a few laps--I'm not being flippant, I simply don't know how to
say it--and then, anyhow, I'd be outside the "box," wouldn't I? And in
the freedom--and I could catch up, maybe. Yet, it might be the other
way; I might have shown an "unforgiveable contempt" for my life.
Unforgiveable--by whom? You say God forgives forever--well, I know He
must, if He's a God worth worshipping. So I don't know what you mean
by "unforgiveable." And you don't know if it's my "single, glorious
chance" at life. How can you know? On the other hand, I don't know
but that it is--that's the risk, I suppose--and it is a hideous risk.
I suppose likely you mean that. You see, when it gets down below
Sunday-school lesson